Irvine Co. Should Solve Traffic Woes It Created

Re “Freeway Atop Rail Line Offered as 91 Relief,” July 11:

I read with great amusement The Irvine Co.’s silent admission of the seriousness of Orange County’s ground transportation gridlock problem, and their stack-’em solution to the problem. The Santa Ana Canyon Y has by far the worst gridlock in the county, second to the El Toro Y. Both of these major gridlock areas can be attributed to none other than the Irvine Co. in its greed to build out its 90,000-acre Irvine Ranch property.

Apparently, the company’s trademark “Better planning goes a long way” statement hasn’t been read by Donald Bren, the company’s ruthless, unseen owner. The company’s four-legged cattle occupying the original Irvine Ranch never contributed to the county’s gridlock problem. The ranchers of the day had unlimited open space. Thanks to Bren and his developer friends’ grand master plans, not only is the county bursting at the seems, so too are our ground and air transportation infrastructures.

So how did the company arrive at the ground transportation stack-’em alternative? No doubt they got the idea from their stack-’em and pack-’em luxury apartment developments sprouting up faster than weeds after a rainstorm. What’s the company’s next alternative? A double-decker second county airport atop John Wayne Airport?

It’s time for the company to take responsibility for the nightmare traffic problems it has inflicted on all us residents and freeze their remaining future developments until the transportation problems have been adequately addressed. Isn’t Bren rich enough yet?

Russell Niewiarowski

Santa Ana Heights

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I share the skepticism of the Irvine Co. regarding the solutions to congestion on the Riverside Freeway discussed in the article. I would like to offer what I know is a shockingly radical alternative. The Irvine Co. and its fellow developers could cease building $500,000-and-up five-bedroom mansions for the privileged few and instead build affordable housing in Orange County for those of us who work here and provide the services and labor that keep the region afloat. Then most of Orange County’s middle-class workforce wouldn’t have to commute from the hot, smoggy Inland Empire housing tracts to which the county’s politicians and developers have consigned them.

Gayle K. Brunelle

Fullerton

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I do not know what the Irvine Co. is thinking, but we do not need to destroy our nature and quality of living any further?

Constructing that freeway atop the rail line between Orange and Riverside counties will not only look awful but will destroy the already precarious quality of life of hundreds of families living next to that railroad line.

I think the Riverside Freeway has room enough to accommodate four more lanes. On top of that, why don’t we learn from advanced countries like Canada where the central lanes are shifted in direction according to the needs of the traffic? In the mornings, give more lanes to the west-bound traffic, and vice versa for the afternoon.

Jay Martin

Anaheim